Appendix- Water for Food conference proceedings

Poster Competition, Conference Participants, and Photos Technologies and Advances in Water Management Human Dimensions of Water for Food Production Genetics and Physiology of Crop Water Other Conference Participants (148-153) Photos (154-160

Chapter 4- Human Dimensions of Water for Food Production

Feeding 9 Billion and Maintaining the Planet: Meeting the Challenge of 2050 Environmental concerns, which fall outside normal market powers, require special incentives and consideration in water resource decisions, Marty Matlock said. Given that the world’s population now consumes past the point of sustainability, should sustainability be a market choice for consumers? “This should be pre-competitive,” Matlock said. “The consumers should have confidence that everything they buy complies with a certain threshold of humanity, of behavior, of ethics and sustainability.” The market has the power to move materials, goods and services from areas of plenty to those of scarcity. The problem is that the market is not responding to water scarcity, in part because crops are grown where there is no water. For example, in Brazil, areas that once were rainforest now grow 2.4 crops annually for export to China. “They’re exporting de facto water to China,” Matlock said. Another example stems from the 1 billion people who lack access to water and the 2.4 billion who don’t have basic sanitation. Every day, waterborne diseases kill 5,400 children. “That’s the cost of this failure of technology – failure of civilizations,” Matlock said. “It’s a pretty dramatic cost.” Global climate change will increase water scarcity in already water-stressed areas. Although agriculture no longer accounts for 90 percent of global water use, as it did in 1900, agricultural water use has increased fivefold since then. Competing with other sectors for limited water affects the many other uses that are not monetized, such as biodiversity. The Colorado and Ganges rivers offer examples of dramatic decreases in water discharge due to overallocation. Peak flows have not changed, but critical base flows have dropped considerably over time. “It’s hard to have a functional, viable aquatic ecosystem without the aquatic,” Matlock said. Rice, which accounts for 15 percent of human water use, presents another problem. But improvement is possible, Matlock said. Human Dimensions of Water for Food Production Anheuser-Busch InBev, for example, achieved 4.7 percent per-unit reductions in rice culture, saving 3.5 billion liters of water in five years. Water intake is only one issue; equally important is water effluent. From an ecological standpoint, given grossly limited incentive funding, Matlock believes profitable production practices should not be incentivized. “If you already have an incentive for conserving water − reducing soil erosion − then we don’t need to give you more money to do that which you ought to be doing anyway, because the marketplace will weed you out if you don’t perform,” he said. “It’s the things that we don’t incentivize, like preservation of riparian zones, that we should perhaps be incentivizing with our limited resources.” The Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System offers an example of the interconnectedness of agriculture effluent and environmental harm. Pollutants, particularly sediment and nutrients carried downstream from plantations to the Caribbean Sea, have the equivalent effect of a 10-degree temperature change, bleaching the coral reefs. Impacts that are acceptable with 6.7 billion people will not be with 9 billion, Matlock concluded. If management happens only to things that are measured, and not everything can be measured, which metrics are important and how can they be incentivized? “We have to shift our thinking from maximizing any one variable or metric to optimizing several key ones.

Chapter 6- A View from Agricultural Producers

Rainfed and Irrigated Production in Argentina Martin Pasman, an Argentine agronomist with a master’s degree in business administration, began his career as a consultant to farmers and has experience in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil, where he was instrumental in helping to develop 80,000 hectares in the western part of the Cerrado area. His farming experience stems from his family’s farms, located in five areas of Argentina. Most are rainfed, but one area receives less than 500 millimeters of rain annually. Pasman also runs an irrigation business serving 80 percent of the Argentine market, giving him vast experience in developing irrigated land. Argentina is the second-largest South American country after Brazil and is one-third the size of the U.S. One-third of Argentina receives more than 800 millimeters of rain and depends upon rainfed agriculture, while the majority receives less than 800 millimeters. Argentina cultivates 30 million hectares per year, of which 2.2 million are irrigated. Total production output is 90 million metric tons, and about 70 percent of farmers in Argentina practice no-till agriculture. Pasman’s family came to Argentina from the U.S. around 1825, when it was primarily cattle country. His family brought the first Aberdeen Angus bull to Argentina and also helped develop agriculture. In the 1970s, the family farmed 6,000 hectares, of which only 500 were used for crops, yielding 3.5 tons of corn per hectare and 1.5 tons of wheat per hectare. They plowed the land and used few herbicides and no fertilizers. The majority of the land was used to raise 3,000 head of cattle, which were finished in natural pastures. Today, the family’s farm operation has expanded to 20,000 hectares, 15,000 of them used for agriculture. In the low-productivity land, they also manage 9,000 head of cattle in cow-calf operations, finishing the animals in American style feedlots. In rainfed fields, the Pasmans produce 8 tons of corn per hectare and 3 tons of wheat; under irrigation, they get 12 tons of corn and 6 tons of wheat. The most important crop, however, is soybeans. They also grow potatoes, corn and sunflower seeds for Monsanto Company. The farm uses 42 pivots to irrigate 4,000 hectares, and about 80 percent of the farm is double-cropped: wheat plus soybeans, seed corn plus soybeans, potato plus corn. Argentina uses a huge amount of herbicides and genetically modified crops, Pasman said, adding that his farm was one of the first to produce Roundup Ready® soybean seeds in 1994. A View from Agricultural Producers “The cornerstone of our production technology is no-till,” Pasman said, a technique used on the entire farm except the potato fields, which follow a rotation of one year of potatoes followed by three years of no-till. A corn crop follows the potato harvest in the same year. No-till improves water infiltration and water retention and reduces evaporation because the previous crops’ residue minimizes runoff and allows the soil to retain more water. No-till also reduces erosion risk and increases organic matter, improving oxidation and carbon circulation in the soil. It improves soil fertility, increases productivity and sustainability, and allows farming in difficult soils, particularly shallow soils of 3 inches. No-till uses less than half the water and less labor compared to conventional tillage, reducing production costs by 30 percent, Pasman concluded. “It is very important, the mix of no tillage with center pivot (irrigation) against traditional management.

Chapter 6- A View from Agricultural Producers

Rainfed and Irrigated Production in Argentina Martin Pasman, an Argentine agronomist with a master’s degree in business administration, began his career as a consultant to farmers and has experience in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil, where he was instrumental in helping to develop 80,000 hectares in the western part of the Cerrado area. His farming experience stems from his family’s farms, located in five areas of Argentina. Most are rainfed, but one area receives less than 500 millimeters of rain annually. Pasman also runs an irrigation business serving 80 percent of the Argentine market, giving him vast experience in developing irrigated land. Argentina is the second-largest South American country after Brazil and is one-third the size of the U.S. One-third of Argentina receives more than 800 millimeters of rain and depends upon rainfed agriculture, while the majority receives less than 800 millimeters. Argentina cultivates 30 million hectares per year, of which 2.2 million are irrigated. Total production output is 90 million metric tons, and about 70 percent of farmers in Argentina practice no-till agriculture. Pasman’s family came to Argentina from the U.S. around 1825, when it was primarily cattle country. His family brought the first Aberdeen Angus bull to Argentina and also helped develop agriculture. In the 1970s, the family farmed 6,000 hectares, of which only 500 were used for crops, yielding 3.5 tons of corn per hectare and 1.5 tons of wheat per hectare. They plowed the land and used few herbicides and no fertilizers. The majority of the land was used to raise 3,000 head of cattle, which were finished in natural pastures. Today, the family’s farm operation has expanded to 20,000 hectares, 15,000 of them used for agriculture. In the low-productivity land, they also manage 9,000 head of cattle in cow-calf operations, finishing the animals in American style feedlots. In rainfed fields, the Pasmans produce 8 tons of corn per hectare and 3 tons of wheat; under irrigation, they get 12 tons of corn and 6 tons of wheat. The most important crop, however, is soybeans. They also grow potatoes, corn and sunflower seeds for Monsanto Company. The farm uses 42 pivots to irrigate 4,000 hectares, and about 80 percent of the farm is double-cropped: wheat plus soybeans, seed corn plus soybeans, potato plus corn. Argentina uses a huge amount of herbicides and genetically modified crops, Pasman said, adding that his farm was one of the first to produce Roundup Ready® soybean seeds in 1994. A View from Agricultural Producers “The cornerstone of our production technology is no-till,” Pasman said, a technique used on the entire farm except the potato fields, which follow a rotation of one year of potatoes followed by three years of no-till. A corn crop follows the potato harvest in the same year. No-till improves water infiltration and water retention and reduces evaporation because the previous crops’ residue minimizes runoff and allows the soil to retain more water. No-till also reduces erosion risk and increases organic matter, improving oxidation and carbon circulation in the soil. It improves soil fertility, increases productivity and sustainability, and allows farming in difficult soils, particularly shallow soils of 3 inches. No-till uses less than half the water and less labor compared to conventional tillage, reducing production costs by 30 percent, Pasman concluded. “It is very important, the mix of no tillage with center pivot (irrigation) against traditional management.

Chapter 4- Human Dimensions of Water for Food Production

Feeding 9 Billion and Maintaining the Planet: Meeting the Challenge of 2050 Environmental concerns, which fall outside normal market powers, require special incentives and consideration in water resource decisions, Marty Matlock said. Given that the world’s population now consumes past the point of sustainability, should sustainability be a market choice for consumers? “This should be pre-competitive,” Matlock said. “The consumers should have confidence that everything they buy complies with a certain threshold of humanity, of behavior, of ethics and sustainability.” The market has the power to move materials, goods and services from areas of plenty to those of scarcity. The problem is that the market is not responding to water scarcity, in part because crops are grown where there is no water. For example, in Brazil, areas that once were rainforest now grow 2.4 crops annually for export to China. “They’re exporting de facto water to China,” Matlock said. Another example stems from the 1 billion people who lack access to water and the 2.4 billion who don’t have basic sanitation. Every day, waterborne diseases kill 5,400 children. “That’s the cost of this failure of technology – failure of civilizations,” Matlock said. “It’s a pretty dramatic cost.” Global climate change will increase water scarcity in already water-stressed areas. Although agriculture no longer accounts for 90 percent of global water use, as it did in 1900, agricultural water use has increased fivefold since then. Competing with other sectors for limited water affects the many other uses that are not monetized, such as biodiversity. The Colorado and Ganges rivers offer examples of dramatic decreases in water discharge due to overallocation. Peak flows have not changed, but critical base flows have dropped considerably over time. “It’s hard to have a functional, viable aquatic ecosystem without the aquatic,” Matlock said. Rice, which accounts for 15 percent of human water use, presents another problem. But improvement is possible, Matlock said. Human Dimensions of Water for Food Production Anheuser-Busch InBev, for example, achieved 4.7 percent per-unit reductions in rice culture, saving 3.5 billion liters of water in five years. Water intake is only one issue; equally important is water effluent. From an ecological standpoint, given grossly limited incentive funding, Matlock believes profitable production practices should not be incentivized. “If you already have an incentive for conserving water − reducing soil erosion − then we don’t need to give you more money to do that which you ought to be doing anyway, because the marketplace will weed you out if you don’t perform,” he said. “It’s the things that we don’t incentivize, like preservation of riparian zones, that we should perhaps be incentivizing with our limited resources.” The Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System offers an example of the interconnectedness of agriculture effluent and environmental harm. Pollutants, particularly sediment and nutrients carried downstream from plantations to the Caribbean Sea, have the equivalent effect of a 10-degree temperature change, bleaching the coral reefs. Impacts that are acceptable with 6.7 billion people will not be with 9 billion, Matlock concluded. If management happens only to things that are measured, and not everything can be measured, which metrics are important and how can they be incentivized? “We have to shift our thinking from maximizing any one variable or metric to optimizing several key ones.

Expanding Paramedicine in the Community (EPIC): study protocol for a randomized controlled trial.

BackgroundThe incidence of chronic diseases, including diabetes mellitus (DM), heart failure (HF) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is on the rise. The existing health care system must evolve to meet the growing needs of patients with these chronic diseases and reduce the strain on both acute care and hospital-based health care resources. Paramedics are an allied health care resource consisting of highly-trained practitioners who are comfortable working independently and in collaboration with other resources in the out-of-hospital setting. Expanding the paramedic's scope of practice to include community-based care may decrease the utilization of acute care and hospital-based health care resources by patients with chronic disease.Methods/designThis will be a pragmatic, randomized controlled trial comparing a community paramedic intervention to standard of care for patients with one of three chronic diseases. The objective of the trial is to determine whether community paramedics conducting regular home visits, including health assessments and evidence-based treatments, in partnership with primary care physicians and other community based resources, will decrease the rate of hospitalization and emergency department use for patients with DM, HF and COPD. The primary outcome measure will be the rate of hospitalization at one year. Secondary outcomes will include measures of health system utilization, overall health status, and cost-effectiveness of the intervention over the same time period. Outcome measures will be assessed using both Poisson regression and negative binomial regression analyses to assess the primary outcome.DiscussionThe results of this study will be used to inform decisions around the implementation of community paramedic programs. If successful in preventing hospitalizations, it has the ability to be scaled up to other regions, both nationally and internationally. The methods described in this paper will serve as a basis for future work related to this study.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov: NCT02034045. Date: 9 January 2014

Interferon-stimulated gene (ISG)-expression screening reveals the specific antibunyaviral activity of ISG20

Bunyaviruses pose a significant threat to human health, prosperity and food security. In response to viral infections, interferons (IFNs) upregulate the expression of hundreds of interferon stimulated genes (ISGs) whose cumulative action can potently inhibit the replication of bunyaviruses. We used a flow cytometry-based method to screen the ability of ∼500 unique ISGs from humans and rhesus macaques to inhibit the replication of Bunyamwera orthobunyavirus (BUNV), the prototype of both the Peribunyaviridae family and Bunyavirales order. Candidates possessing antibunyaviral activity were further examined using a panel of divergent bunyaviruses. Interestingly, one candidate, ISG20, exhibited potent antibunyaviral activity against most viruses examined from the Peribunyaviridae, Hantaviridae and Nairoviridae families, whereas phleboviruses (Phenuiviridae) largely escaped inhibition. Similar to other viruses known to be targeted by ISG20, the antibunyaviral activity of ISG20 is dependent upon its functional ribonuclease activity. Through use of an infectious VLP assay (based on the BUNV minigenome system), we confirmed that gene expression from all 3 viral segments is strongly inhibited by ISG20. Using in vitro evolution, we generated a substantially ISG20-resistant BUNV and mapped the determinants of ISG20 sensitivity/resistance. Taken together, we report that ISG20 is a broad and potent antibunyaviral factor yet some bunyaviruses are remarkably ISG20 resistant. Thus, ISG20 sensitivity/resistance could influence the pathogenesis of bunyaviruses, many of which are emerging viruses of clinical or veterinary significance

Application of Probiotic Bacteria to Functional Foods

End of Project ReportProbiotic cultures are described as live microbial feed supplements that improve intestinal microbial balance and are intended for maintenance of health or prevention, rather than the curing of disease. The demand for probiotic foods is increasing in Europe, Japan and the U.S. reflecting the heightened awareness among the public of the relationship between diet and health. Traditionally, the most popular food delivery systems for these cultures have been freshly fermented dairy foods, such as yogurts and fermented milks, as well as unfermented milks with cultures added. However, in the development of functional foods, the technological suitability of probiotic strains poses a serious challenge since their survival and viability may be adversely affected by processing conditions as well as by the product environment and storage conditions. This is a particular concern, given that high levels (at least 107 per gram or ml) of live micro-organisms are recommended for probiotic products. In previous studies (see DPRC No. 29) the successful manufacture of probiotic Cheddar cheese harbouring high levels (>108 cfu/g) of the probiotic Lactobacillus paracasei NFBC 338 strain was reported. Hence, the overall objective of these studies was to continue the development and evaluation of Functional Foods containing high levels of viable probiotic bacteria, with particular emphasis on overcoming the technological barriers and the identification of strains suited to particular applications, such as incorporation into Cheddar cheese and spray-dried powders.Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marin

Identifying factors associated with sedentary time after stroke. Secondary analysis of pooled data from nine primary studies.

<p><b>Background</b>: High levels of sedentary time increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, including recurrent stroke.</p> <p><b>Objective</b>: This study aimed to identify factors associated with high sedentary time in community-dwelling people with stroke.</p> <p><b>Methods</b>: For this data pooling study, authors of published and ongoing trials that collected sedentary time data, using the activPAL monitor, in community-dwelling people with stroke were invited to contribute their raw data. The data was reprocessed, algorithms were created to identify sleep-wake time and determine the percentage of waking hours spent sedentary. We explored demographic and stroke-related factors associated with total sedentary time and time in uninterrupted sedentary bouts using unique, both univariable and multivariable, regression analyses.</p> <p><b>Results</b>: The 274 included participants were from Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, and spent, on average, 69% (SD 12.4) of their waking hours sedentary. Of the demographic and stroke-related factors, slower walking speeds were significantly and independently associated with a higher percentage of waking hours spent sedentary (p = 0.001) and uninterrupted sedentary bouts of <i>>30</i> and <i>>60 min</i> (p = 0.001 and p = 0.004, respectively). Regression models explained 11–19% of the variance in total sedentary time and time in prolonged sedentary bouts.</p> <p><b>Conclusion</b>: We found that variability in sedentary time of people with stroke was largely unaccounted for by demographic and stroke-related variables. Behavioral and environmental factors are likely to play an important role in sedentary behavior after stroke. Further work is required to develop and test effective interventions to address sedentary behavior after stroke.</p